


Able To Breathe Again

by honey_tongued_sociopath



Category: Psych, Supernatural
Genre: Abaddon/Cain if you squint, Cain and Lassiter have the same actor and bees, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s09e11 First Born, F/M, Gen, I blame late nights and bees, Shared Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 06:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3318161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_tongued_sociopath/pseuds/honey_tongued_sociopath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cain, from brother to knight to husband to detective to bee keeper, and how he managed to get to Missouri from the Middle East.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Able To Breathe Again

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the ever lovely theresa82 for betaing :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Cain, Able, their disastrous family life, the Devil playing at God, and Gabriel calling collect for Able's soul.

When Eve hands Cain his newborn brother, the child squalling in pain and fear of this cold and blood-filled world, Cain is too young to appreciate the life that he holds delicately in his hands as if it were to try and strike him at any moment. But when the child (Eve later names him Able) looks into Cain’s eyes and smiles, despite all the blood, Cain can’t help thinking that his eyes, blue as the sky in the late afternoon, are beautiful.

Cain’s favorite color will always be that stark blue.

Able is young, and Eve and Adam are busy trying to survive, so it falls to Cain to protect Able and teach him how to live and survive. They spend their days together, the toddling Able somehow always able (Cain laughs at this later, first with joy and then with bitterness and mourning) to get into trouble somehow. When Cain finds Able, the young boy always smiles at him, and Cain feels his heart melting before he launches into a lecture about being safe.

As if things weren’t bad enough with their absentee parents, Adam dies, and throws the whole family into utter chaos.

One of the men of God in their tiny camp is out hunting with the rest of the men, and he is attacked. He does not know how to use a weapon properly against the monstrous creatures that maul humans daily, and Adam does, so he lures the beast (because, Cain thinks bitterly, Abba always would do a stupid self-sacrificing thing like this) and is killed. The man runs, like a coward. His mother, heavy with child (and apparently delusions, but no one knew that until it was too late), retreats within herself, and talks to none of the women. When she finally emerges, her child has eyes as black as night, and Eve pronounces it as her one true child.

She sets fire to the encampment, and they all escape unscathed, but they separate, leaving Eve and her unholy offspring to themselves.

Cain escapes with Able (because it was always meant to be the two of them, from the very beginning when Eve had handed him her second-born son), and teaches him how to make weaponry after one of the Unholy One’s brethren try to slaughter them, black eyes flaring with hatred. They fight together, creating a home. Able grows things, and Cain thanks God that they are safe and that Able can still smile, and he hunts for their meals. They laugh together, and Cain soothes Able after terrors of fire and the madwoman that used to be their mother.

Cain isn’t sure what she is now.

The plants grow, and Able chats endlessly about them, and after a time, Cain and Abel mostly forget the horrors of their mother and father and the camp and the Unholy One (because Cain didn’t know how that thing could ever be their brother). They live a happy life. It is quiet and peaceful to Abel, and Cain makes sure that his brother never sees the blood of the animals he slaughters and makes for their meals (Able is queasy about these things, and Cain is not surprised- they have spent their lives carefully forgetting the terror of their mother and the death of their father)- which are surprisingly very good.

And then, on one sunny afternoon, Able claims to have seen God.

Cain doesn’t know what to make of this. God stood by as their father was murdered, as their mother razed their camp to the ground, as the Unholy One hunted them like beasts of the field, and yet Able claims that God wants a sacrifice. Specifically, his sacrifice- his plants and fruits and all the green growing things that Able loves most. Cain asks to see God, and Able happily obliges- he has never denied his brother anything, and Cain has never denied Able anything. But this- this feels different for some reason. Cain follows Able into the middle of his garden, and stands, frozen to the spot.

Because the man Cain sees is in no way God.

He saw this man, saw him walk into the tent where their mother was giving childbirth, and as he sees the tongue of this terrifying and awful creature flicker, he remembers an old tale his father used to tell him about a scaly creature with legs and a forked tongue that deceived his mother and father and took them out of Eden, out of Paradise. The tongue flickers again, and while Cain sees no scaly skin (only smoothness like theirs) and sees his legs and arms, he is not deceived as easily as the brother he has raised, and sees the dirt clinging to the man’s belly and the forked tongue rasp out once again. This is not God, not this man who smiles charmingly.

No, Cain thinks, this man is the Devil, surely.

He smiles at his brother uneasily, and asks him to go check on the vegetables that are cooking over the fire, and Abel grins back, eyes shining happily. When Cain is alone with the man, he sits with him, and tears one of Able’s plants out of his mouth. “We are not having supper together, fool,” Cain grounds out harshly, “because you are not God.” The man blinks, once, twice, then laughs, rich and throatily. “You’re not as easy to deceive with illusions, I see,” he smiles, eyes glittering (and for that Cain feels fear, because darkened eyes have tried to hunt him before), “What gave me away?”

“God does not have a forked tongue and a soiled belly,” Cain states simply, and the man laughs again, as if he finds this all to be a very amusing game. “You still listen to the old tales, then?” he inquires, and Cain scoffs. “They are not old tales, Deceiver. My father told me of Eden- I am Cain, son of Adam,” Cain’s breast puffs out proudly- Abba was nothing if not a good man, and Cain is proud to carry on his lineage, even if the man was as idiotic as the sheep that followed each other blindly.

But as the man’s eyes light up again, Cain wonders if he has said too much.

“So!” he smiles, clapping his hands on his knees, “I’m to have an original son of Adam as my personal pet! This should be... fascinating.” And Cain’s mouth opens in horror, for Able to be referred to as a pet by this strange man with his strange habits and his lying and deceiving as if it were nothing but breathing. “No,” he gasps, and the man looks at him strangely. “No?” he asks Cain, and continues as if Cain was not even sitting across from him, “Why, I do believe your precious brother is already preparing his sacrifice to me. What would you be able to offer me that is better than his offering?” Cain scrambles for something, and remembers another tale his father used to tell him, about how God had given them all souls and how they were to be guarded with care.  
If it was that important, Cain reasoned, it must be worth very much.  
.  
“My soul,” Cain whispers, too low for Able to hear, but loud enough for the stranger’s eyes to glimmer (and later Cain recognizes it as greed, when he has experienced the world and seen greed in the eyes of both men and demons) and he grasps Cain’s arm. Cain is panicked, but terrified enough to stay still when the stranger traces out a pattern on his forearm. “And you swear, that for Able’s soul in Heaven, you shall sell your soul to Hell?” the stranger asks, as if he can’t believe that Cain is actually going through with this. But clearly, he doesn’t understand the lengths Cain is willing to go for his only brother, his only family since his father was mauled and his mother turned into something... else, something inhuman.

“Oh, and one more condition,” the stranger adds, “You must be the one to kill your brother.”

At this, Cain understandably pales. His own brother, his own flesh and blood- to murder him would be to take away his only link to family, to home... to love. A world without Able is one that Cain does not wish to think of but... he glances over at Able checking the vegetables, smiling gently over his almost-children. Able deserves happiness, deserves Heaven, even if the Deceiver wants him as a pet, and Cain is willing to give himself away for this. The thought of Able burning in Hell because Cain was too squeamish to kill his brother was unbearable, but for some reason he still looks at the ground when he agrees to kill his brother and work for the Devil.

Able smiles as Cain begins to look for the beast he had slaughtered last, and chats on about how this meal will be one of the best that he has ever tasted, and Cain weeps silently into his bowl as they eat together.

After the meal, Cain procures the jawbone from where he has been hiding it, and moves to strike Able as he sleeps. It will be easier this way, he whispers to himself, easier than letting the Devil have Able for all of eternity. But then suddenly, as the jawbone is so close to his head Cain can already hear the sickening crunch of bone on bone, Able shifts in his sleep, and wide blue eyes stare Cain down as the jawbone destroys his only family left. There are tears streaming down both of their faces, and Cain holds his brother until his soul is no longer warm in his body.

The stranger comes to congratulate Cain, and “knights” him (when Cain is in the midst of the Renaissance period, he laughs at the Devil’s stupid notion of knights of Hell- as if Hell could ever be honorable), turning the jawbone into a proper blade, and burning the area he had traced before into Cain’s skin permanently.

Too late, an angel comes to take Able’s soul into Heaven, and Cain weeps. The angel turns to him, and lays down his brother, Abel’s eyes still forever open in terror and fear of his own brother. Cain closes them, unable to bear looking into the blue that is no longer as stark as it was before. The angel takes pity on Cain then, and asks him what made him do this. “The Deceiver,” Cain responds, rubbing his forearm. “Ah,” the angel says, “Old Luci’s up to his tricks again. I should remind him that that’s my schtick. Later, but still.” Cain is confused- who is Lucy? The angel seems to read his mind and responds, “Lucifer. Your... Deceiver. He used to be called Lucifer, up in Heaven. He was one of us once.” The angel seems unwilling to share anymore, and scoops up his brother. Cain screams after the angel leaves, and stabs himself with his own knife, unable to bear this world without light, this world without Able.

When he awakens from his deep slumber, Cain washes his face in the river, and sees the same black eyes flicker back at him as the Unholy One.

He screams, and grabs his knife, but there is no one behind him, and the water still reflects his eyes, blue, then black as he focuses deeply on them. Cain weeps again, for the second time that day, and he climbs out on his own, mud dragging him down and sticking to his garb. He wanders, hating the idea of a camp, because a camp without Able is never home.

He sees his mother, atop a beast with scales and wings, and when she offers him her hand and calls him son, he recoils in disgust, and leaves her to her “children”. She never deserved Able, he thinks to himself, and treasures the moments he had with Able. Then he tries to forget Able, because the memories are too painful.

And suddenly, a woman with red hair who calls herself Abaddon offers him her hand, and everything changes for Cain in the blink of an eye.


End file.
